By Frank Wallis
Teresa VanWinkle is a woman driven by causes. The cause that vies for the No. 1 position in her heart is simply to get barefooted and go fishing.
Leisure time comes to Teresa at a premium, and much of it is spent in a trout boat on the White River, often with creative partner Davy Wotton.
The anglers have teamed up for nearly a decade in the creation of Wotton’s famous fly patterns found in fly shops worldwide.
Seeing Teresa barefooted in a trout boat with jeans rolled up to mid-calf, it’s clear that she’s just another end consumer for the fly baits she creates.
She’s an efficient angler, too. The big rainbow trout can’t lay off.
“There you are!” Teresa says to the contentious quarry. The fish will soon be released with nothing more than, perhaps, a sore lip. “What a beautiful fish. I never get tired of this.”
Teresa has worked harder for the catch than most anglers. She has worked all of her adult life to conserve trout fisheries and fish habitat in Arkansas and Missouri.
She’s been a leader of volunteers since the 1980s. Friends of the Norfork National Fish Hatchery, a volunteer group led by Leon Alexander, with membership nationwide, is at the cutting-edge of the conservation effort lately. Letter-writing campaigns are aimed at keeping federal officials, senators, house members, governors, and lawmakers at the state level all up-to-date on fisheries and fish hatchery threats.
And Vanwinkle’s been no stranger to the effort, or the halls of the nation’s capital and the offices of Arkansas’s and Missouri’s lawmakers.
“It started for me more than 30 years ago with the near closure of the Neosho (Missouri) National Fish Hatchery. I volunteered to help with the letter-writing campaign to legislators in support of the hatchery—keeping it open—and the hatchery is still producing trout and sturgeon today. So, we did something right there,” Teresa said.
The effort led to friendships with Missouri U.S. Senator Kit Bond and most top-ranking officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“I never had a problem getting the senator and Fish and Wildlife officials to talk to me,” Teresa said.
Key to Alexander’s work with the Friends of the Norfork National Fish Hatchery and companion groups is a crowded activity calendar centered around the hatchery, Teresa says.
“Officials — the ones who can actually write federal funding into an omnibus bill — notice when hundreds of young people and their parents turn out to participate in multiple events sponsored and planned for them around the hatchery each year,” Teresa said. “That’s important when various agencies involved in fulfilling mitigation agreements that came with the dams begin to discuss funding.
“For at least three years there has been a bill floating at the committee level in congress that could fund the cold water hatcheries automatically each year. That’s different. We haven’t always had a bill to talk about.”
The hatcheries are important to the local economy and the coveted barefoot time.
“The fisheries just wouldn’t be what they are without them,” Teresa said.
The hatchery at the foot of Norfork Dam near Salesville is the economic engine that drives a $100 million fishing and lodging economy in Baxter and Marion counties. It’s stimulus for nearly 1,000 jobs in multiple states.
Still, there is no funding mandate to guarantee funding for the hatchery year after year.
Fish and Wildlife officials have appeared at public events in the area at Teresa’s invitation to coach locals on ways to keep the funding discussion lively.
Teresa was a nail technician in a salon near Neosho when the Missouri hatchery came under threat of closure.
Sixteen years as a nail technician has given her some fingers up in the business of building fishing flies. She’s worn the long version of nail extensions for 28 years.
“They are a part of me and indispensable to what I do at the bench tying flies,” Teresa said.
The undersides of the long nails function as a spoon to scoop up the tiny beads used in the creation of Wotton flies.
The nails are accoutrements that the males who predominate the art of fly tying have been slow to adopt.
“Not that there would be anything wrong with that,” Teresa says with a chuckle.
The blond with long nails is a standout at the annual Sowbug Roundup and Southern Council of Fly Flyfishers Conclave in Mountain Home.
She’s a stand out as well at the Mountain Home Gun Club where she shoots clays without mercy and on par with most males of the species.
She wears the title “flyfishingdiva” well for purposes of communicating online.
Find Teresa VanWinkle easily through any Internet search engine. Make a new friend and join the cause. M! February/March 2015
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